Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACS) in 10 U.S. Cities: The Building Blocks for Project Safe Neighborhoods

摘要

In the early 1990s, the city of Boston experienced an out-of-control level of juvenile homicide and gun-related crime. The police department partnered with Harvard University researchers to analyze the problem in-depth and work together with other stakeholders to implement appropriate intervention strategies. Their collaborative, data-driven, problem-solving Operation Ceasefire was considered wildly successful--the youth homicide rate dropped from an average of around 40 annually between 1990 and 1995 to the low-teens in 1996, post-Ceasefire. The Department of Justice launched SACSI, the Strategic Approach to Community Safety Initiative, in 1998, to see if Boston's approach could be replicated by ten other cities also fighting high rates of violent crime. This report presents the main findings of a national assessment of the SACSI cities strategies and effectiveness.